Random Acts of Silliness
by warai kitsune
Summary: Originally intended to be a place to post a series of vignettes, I've decided to follow the plot line of this first chapter. Though don't expect regular updates.As for the story summary? Three words Celibate Tentacle Demon.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Notes: I suppose that in some ways this could be thought to contain mild lime content, as it does with a subject that is generally found only in adult material. Though considering that the intimacy level doesn't reach (let alone exceed) holding hands, this is only a cursory warning. Just a random idea, really.

**_Twisted Reflections  
_**A brief and decidedly weird fanfic idea.

Sailor Venus stared in horror, twitching. "Please...god...no..."

Sailor Mercury was a great deal more composed, but mainly because she was in shock. "..."

Uranus seemed to be the only one even remotely interested in fighting. "It's not that bad."

This proved enough to drag the other eight from their current horrified fantasies of the likely outcome of their next fight to glare at the uber-bishonen. "You DO realize what those things waving around in the air are," Pluto bit out acidly.

"Not to mention the fact that we're teenaged super-heroines wearing really short skirts?" Saturn added.

Uranus lost some of her bravado. Well, actually she kind of turned pale and blushing in turns.

Mars licked her lips nervously, still in horror. "Why did it have to be tentacles?"

Uranus firmed her resolve. "That doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that it's a tentacle demon. Or that we're all young, attractive women in revealing clothing. Or what that thing's likely to do to us. We still have to protect the future of Crystal Tokyo, and having THAT thing in it isn't something I want to put up with."

Pluto glared.

Jupiter spoke up. "Can't we just wait for the Self-Defense force to deal with it?"

"They already tried," Mercury put in helpfully. "Their tanks were ripped apart, and then everyone started running."

Uranus shrugged. "Well, nothing to do but fight." Grabbing Sailor Moon by the back of her fuku, she proceeded to throw her at the thing's feet. "SO GET TO IT PRINCESS!"

In Japan, Sailor Moon's real name is Usagi Tsukino, which loosely translates to mean 'Rabbit of the moon.' Apparently, they have a rabbit instead of the man in the moon. But I digress. The point is that her name seemed unusually appropriate, seeing as she was behaving remarkably like a small rodent in front of the biggest damn predator imaginable. Freezing in shock, anyway.

She knew what tentacle demons did. She'd never actually watched the videos, but she'd heard enough to know. As such, she was currently imagining all kinds of horrible, perverted things being done to her.

Quite literally, the last thing she expected was for the demon to turn to look at her, and sigh in relief as he let the two dozen or so tentacles go limp and drag along the ground. "Christ, it took you guys long enough. I've been sitting here and writhing for," he paused as he checked a wristwatch attached to one of his tentacles, "at least three hours. What kept you?"

Usagi was still sprawled across the ground. That was the only thing keeping her from face-faulting. The rest of the Senshi weren't so lucky.

Mercury pushed herself to her hands. "I'm sorry, what did you just say?"

Now that they weren't paying attention to his tentacles, the nine of them were able to notice a few details that hadn't seemed as important. He didn't really look demonic, if you ignored all the extra apendages. He just looked like a normal guy without a shirt on. He shrugged as the eight slowly drew closer, those with weapons holding them cautiously. "I asked what kept you?"

Venus found her voice. "Uh...you're not going to try and do disturbing things to us with those tentacles, are you?"

He groaned to himself, rubbing his temples. "For the love of god, no. Now will you guys hurry up and moon-dust me, or whatever the hell it is you say when you kill demons?"

Mars gaped. "A suicidal youma?"

"I'm not a youma you jack-ass. What's worse, up until about six hours ago, I was a human being. Then I got a case of unfathomably bad karma, and ended up walking into some store called Spells R Us (1). I bought a magazine that apparently had an article about the sad state of animation when half-octopus otherworldly beings can be considered entertainment. When I walked out of the store, I had all these," he growled, gesturing to the still limp appendages.

Venus groaned. "Wait a second, you used to be a human? But then..."

"Why do I want to die?" He shrugged. "To be honest, I don't. But if it comes to that, somehow I get this feeling that death would be preferable to having to deal with the guilt of doing some of the disturbing things that are running through my head. In all honesty, what I was actually hoping is that meatballs over there would exorcise this damn thing from me or something."

Neptune stared at him warily. "Disturbing things?"

He shrugged, this time seeming to slide deeper into depression. "Apparently, it's not just that these monsters are perverts, its actually wired into them."

Venus shook her head. "That's messed up."

He snorted disdainfully. "You want messed up? Try this. I rode the subway to get the park here, but when I got off without raping anyone, I saw a few of the women on the same car looked disappointed. Not to mention those three creepy looking guys."

"Eeeewwwwwww."

Pluto groaned. It was going to be one of those millennia.

Not finished yet, just an exercise in insanity, really.

Author's Notes: I have no intention whatsoever of continuing this fic. I have no intention of writing something similar to this. And frankly, outside of a cheap laugh, I have no idea what purpose this serves.

Still, it's worth a laugh, isn't it?

Anyway, if I post anything else under this story title, they'll be other weird, generally unconnected things.

(1) - I first read about the Spells R Us store as a side-note in some of Metroanime's stories. Basically, everything they sell there is in some way cursed, mainly in a transformative nature. If you ate girl scout cookies bought from there, you'd shrink and suddenly show up in a skirt and beret; baby ruth made you relive the days before you'd developed bladder and sphincter control...don't even ask what a Whatchamacallit bar would do to you.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

It spun lazily in the air, chance personified, the fate of thousands riding on the slightest motion.

"Tails!"

Private Ichiro Akamatsu looked down at the 50-yen piece as though it had betrayed him. He shook his head mournfully. They'd come up with an unusual process of elimination; as the coin flipped in the air, everyone present extended either one or two fingers; one for heads, two for tails. Whoever called it right was included into the next round, and so on, until only one person was left. If everyone would have been eliminated in one round, then it was done over. Simple, really. Time-consuming, but simple.

And Ichiro had called tails. The problem was that in this particular game, you WANTED to be eliminated.

Sighing, he secured his helmet and shouldered an H&K G-36 as he made his towards the rather ordinary-looking fellow currently sitting on the curb, depression written on his face. "Um...sir?" He swallowed at the dull, hopeless look on the man's face. "We're...we're ready for the next trial."

Lloyd sighed, and hoisted himself to his feet. It had been two weeks since he'd been transformed into a tentacle demon. The meeting with the sailor senshi hadn't gone anywhere nearly as well as he'd hoped; that Sailor Moon twit had been MOST unhelpful after it had been revealed that he was actually a human; he'd had to lie, saying that if she didn't zap him, he might not be able to control himself. The fact that they were all severely underage was actually a blessing; it was a HUGE bucket of cold water on his libido. Not to mention a blessed relief; he might have been a demon, but at least he wasn't a monster.

The big problem though had been that her attack didn't do squat. He was apparently a good deal tougher than your average random-ever day-object-girls-would-easily-recognize-temporarily-changed-into-some-sort-of-daemonic-entity, or whatever the hell it was they usually fought. I mean, come on; demonic sewing implements? He was also apparently a fair bit tougher than your average chthonic, B-grade SciFi movie bishoujo senshi villain.

Long story short, they hadn't made a dent in him.

They'd tried, to. He'd been careful to insult the butch one until she was so frothing mad she'd given up magic and tried beating him to death with a park bench. It was confusing, not to mention slightly creepy, that she found it insulting to hear that a tentacle demon didn't think she was worth raping. Was she high, or just that dumb? Then again, they all wore those chokers; maybe hers was just on too tight. Or the fumes from her bottle-job girlfriend's peroxide had had an unforeseen and unpleasant side effect on her.

The soldier grimaced as he watched the demon stroll along him nonchalantly. "So uh...where'd you get the trench coat?"

"Made it," came the noncommittal reply. "It's just shape-shifted tentacles mimicking a leather jacket. Same as my pants, though those are mimicking a pair of jeans. It's not like I can find a clothing shop that doesn't empty, screaming, the second I walk in."

Ichiro nodded. It was weird, but he actually felt the demon was kind of...well, companionable. In a tragic hero sort of way. The last eight days only drove the point home.

Having pretty much exhausted any hope of a solution via magical girls, he'd found an abandoned lot and just waited for the various groups to show up and try to off him. He'd spent three hours getting swatted with those stupid paper-tassels on a stick that was apparently standard issue for a Shinto shrine maiden. They'd only left him alone (and the whole Shinto community, as well) when he'd mentioned in passing that he thought the shrine-maiden outfits were kind of kinky. He hadn't WANTED them to run screaming for the hills (and their virginity), but it had been kind of funny. In a pathetic sort of way.

Then the Christians decided to butt in. He'd never known their were bipolar lesbian samurai nuns who hung around with butch German gunslingers (1). Or crazed, Scottish, regenerating catholic priests with some sort of phallic knife obsession. At least until they came and ended up expending probably forty or fifty pounds of scrap metal (in the form of chips from the blade of a samurai sword, spent casings, shells, and thrown bayonets) on his form before he finally got bored with the whole thing and swatted them.

Reportedly, the coast guard had picked them up out of the ocean several hours later. And the German was the only one sporting a serious injury; hypothermia, namely.

At that point, religion pretty much decided to wait for God to deal with him in one form or another.

Then came the scientists. And the military

In the intervening week, he'd been shot with small arms, assault rifles, machine guns, Phalanx Vulcan cannons, 30mm anti-tank guns, 70mm RPG's, 120mm tank guns, 155mm howitzers, and even some decommissioned 800mm Nazi railroad cannon left over from World War II. The Japanese Strategic Self Defense Force had even brought in a brand new prototype anti-installation cannon, one firing a 200mm APFSDS (Armor-Piercing, Fin-Stabilized, Discarding Sabot) round with an 80mm internal hyper-penetration depleted uranium dart in a full-metal tungsten carbide jacket. The soldiers had been REALLY cocky then; they'd dragged along a scientist to tell precisely how it would kill him. Apparently, it was designed to tear through installation walls like a nail, then release a ring of explosive energy using internal shaped charges on pre-fragmented portions of the jacket. Basically it would pound itself inside him and then blow a REALLY big hole in him.

He managed a rueful smile. They'd turned literally chalk-white when it bounced off his chest.

So he was also apparently immune to projectile impact. Rather than let themselves be discouraged, the Japanese people had, in the tradition of their Toho monster movies, pulled out all the stops trying to find the weapon that would kill him. They'd bombed him, sort of half-heartedly, but it was quickly decided that if a focused impact from a bullet wouldn't hurt him, bombs probably wouldn't either. They'd napalmed him, and been very uneasy when his only complaint was that he'd liked those pants; jeans were prohibitively expensive in Japan, after all. Taking the opposite extreme, they'd dropped tanks of liquid helium on him, using shaped charges to rupture them and drench him in temperatures of 4 degrees Kelvin.

It hadn't been comfortable, but he didn't even have frost-bite to show for it.

They'd tried various poison gases, to little effect. They'd tried an industrial laser, and even some fancy new plasma-cutting torch. Again, little to no effect. They'd gone to all the trouble of making a portable clean-room environment to try and see if there were any biological ways to harm him. He didn't want to know HOW they managed to get the US and Russia to cooperate, but somehow they'd gotten a hold of the only two living samples of smallpox in the world to test on him. Then came Ebola. And anthrax. Bubonic plague, sars, blastonecrosis, radioactive isotope poisoning...clean bill of health if Armageddon ever occurred, but that was about it.

He was, as near as he could tell, immortal. The only question was what next.

"Oh. Um...we managed to convince the US to help us out."

Interest piqued, he nodded. "What are you going to try next? Some sort of super-missile, or a satellite weapon?"

Ichiro winced. He couldn't believe that they were going to all this trouble to get rid of one person. "They...they're letting us use one of the old bomb-testing sites in the New Mexico desert. We're..." he sighed. "They want to strap you to a hydrogen bomb and drop you."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"...I see." Silence reigned for a time. More than a time, really.

Right up to the moment that he climbed onto the C130 Hercules that was handling transport.

Ichiro stared at him. "Wait, you're just going to let them NUKE you?"

Lloyd shrugged unconcernedly. "I've been trying to find a way to end it for the last week. I'm just glad so many national governments are willing to give me a leg-up, so to speak. Besides," he sighed, "at this point, I'm not even sure if a thermonuclear hellstorm hotter than the surface of the sun could finish me off at this point."

"..."

"...Yeah, I can see how you might wonder."

Far away, the Diet (Japanese version of congress) sighed in relief. "It's done."

The Secretary of the Interior chuckled weakly. "I'm just glad they agreed to this. It's a win-win situation, gentlemen. If the bomb does the job, we've gotten rid of the damned thing, and improved relations with the US at the same time. And if it doesn't...well, at least it won't be in Japan any longer."

Lloyd's return (overland, cross-country; north through Utah into Canada, then Alaska, crossing the ice sheet in the Bering strait; south through Russia, Korea (north and south), and finally oversea to Japan) was unofficially the cause of seven heart attacks among the members of the Diet.

When asked why he'd come back, his reply had been somewhat unexpected. "I tell people that I have tentacles, and they just scoff. I show them my tentacles, with the very obvious phallic portions of them, and they get these huge, idiotic grins, pull up lawn chairs, and start ordering pizza and beer. I asked what the occasion was, and they said 'they were waiting for Spider Man to show up and beat the crap out of Doctor Octopus." He then shook his head disgustedly. "I was born an American, and I can't help but sigh in shame. At least here you people have the sense to avoid me."

To be continued...


	3. Chapter 3

"GAAAAAAHAAHAAHAAHAAAAA!"

Lest you think otherwise, that was NOT a laugh. At least not in the traditional sense. This was sort of a desperate, howling, half-schizophrenic giggle from someone who was absolutely positive that he should have felt somewhat perversely flattered that the very gods themselves took time out of their busy centuries to deliberately torment HIM.

"WHAT DID I DO! JUST TELL ME ALREADY, I'M SORRY! FOR CHRIST'S SAKE, CUT ME SOME SLACK!"

"THERE HE IS!"

Hearing those voices, Lloyd belatedly fought back the reflexive urge to look back, and summoning his tentacles, slammed a third of them into the ground in front of him. The others shot out to the buildings on either side, giving him a three-point boost into the air with a speed and force that was somewhere in the neighborhood of a Polaris missile at terminal velocity.

Landing heavily on the roof of a twelve-story apartment complex, he shape-shifted his tentacles slightly. After noticing that he could shape-shift to a minor degree (summoning or re-metabolizing his tentacles at need), he'd experimented, and discovered some rather interesting options. Most of them were disgusting and/or creepy, and we won't go into those. However, some that he was sure were INTENDED to be disgusting and creepy had also proven useful. For instance, back there...he'd grown extra hands and feet (and claws and adhesive pads for gripping power) to properly launch himself into the air. Sure, it was most likely a sort of, 'the better to grope you with my dear,' option, but it didn't change the fact that he'd never want for help with the groceries. Or would if he still ate.

Anyway, to get back on track, he'd also found that he could grow eyes and...well not ears, per se, but auditory organs of some sort on each of his tentacles. And when you could grow over two dozen apiece on about sixty odd tentacles, it gave you pretty much unlimited sensory input. Thus eliminating blind-spots.

Which was, in hind-sight, a bad idea.

"You didn't really think you could escape, did you?"

Lloyd froze, his tentacles quivering in barely-suppressed instinct. He was actually wishing it was the army chasing him, or those stupid sailor senshi. Army guys, even the gay ones who kept looking away and blushing at his many phallic appendages, did nothing for him, he was pleased to discover. And sure, the senshi had a sort of eye-candy lolicon appeal, but he could keep that under control.

But what the hell was he supposed to do with THIS?

Miko Mido (1) glared at him. Granted, it was nice to find a demon who didn't just tear off her clothes; maybe he had some kind of foreplay fetish. Heck, considering most of the demons she'd done, that was odd enough to be considered kinky. Still, this was getting ridiculous. "You've managed a good run, Shikima, but this ends here! The power of the Miroku clan will end you once and for all!"

Lloyd glared at her, more hunted than angry. "Lady, what is wrong with you? How can you possibly make tentacle-sex into something that would need a sentai team? Are you high, or just really, really kinky? 'Cause, really, you're not the first, or the only girl I've met who seems to think it might be kinda fun."

She face-faulted. Shooting back to her feet, she started screaming. "DAMN IT, WHAT'S WRONG WITH **YOU**? YOU'VE GOT A BEAUTIFUL, LEGALLY AGED WILLING GIRL, AND YOU'RE JUST **STANDING** THERE? WILL YOU HURRY UP AND RAPE ME ALREADY?"

"..."

It was as though time had stopped.

"..."

Or at least the people in the surrounding area.

"..."

Hell, even Fubuki and Yaku, demon-hunting sluts that they were, were frozen in shock.

"..."

Probably not a good thing, seeing as how they were in midair at the time.

"..."

Perversely, the Romanian judge gave them a 9.8 for a hopeless landing.

"..."

Though that could have been more from the whole two-naked-girls-in-a-pile-thing.

"...Are you there God? It's me, Lloyd. Look, I don't mean to nag, but will you just hurry up and smite me already?"

Overcoming her embarrassment at having yelled that for everyone in a five-block radius, Miko simply tore off her skimpy-little ninja suit and charged.

At which point Lloyd snapped into survival mode. His battered sense of morals simply refused to succumb; gathering his tentacles and furiously sending mental commands of 'down boy!' he shot into the air, shape shifting a bunch of tentacles into a pair of propellers. Sort of. Well, not really, but they were close enough for him to get airborne, and float away from the perverted, psychotic ninjas who actually gave up their lives in training to deal with tentacle demons and various other sex-craft clans.

--------

Somewhere in the Shinjuku district, Lloyd touched down, grumbling under his breath. Flying in helicopter mode was TOUGH. He wasn't particularly built for that, and maintaining it had taken all of his energy and concentration. Sure, it got his mind out of the gutter, but he still would have preferred something else to take his mind off the embarrassing predicament.

What was it with his situation anyway? Was it some sort of law of the universe? I mean, come on. He'd met a couple of guys who had something that vaguely approximated his current situation. Well, not really; there were thankfully almost no other people who had his deal, but there were enough similarities to sort of...group lament about. Take that shrine-keeper's son, the one who somehow ended up getting aliens drooling over him. He wasn't very handsome. Not very muscular, or athletic. Not particularly smart either (not stupid by any means, just not a genius). Sort of a hopeless charisma, but that was all HE could see. And yet he had no less than six girls who were in love with him/ready to jump into bed with him. Hell, he claimed that one of them actually chained him up in some sort of clean room to try and give him hand-jobs.

It was kind of disturbing that the kid with the pig-tail had been able to honestly say that he kind of knew the feeling. Granted, with him it was psychos drugging him and/or tying him up to try and get intimate, but it amounted to largely the same thing.

Then there was that kid with the glasses, the college kid. Apparently, he suspected at times that the girls he lived with might like him, and he somehow managed to randomly grope them and 'accidentally' happen on them in the bath on a regular basis. Though he seemed to get the shit kicked out of him on a regular basis for his pains.

And of course, Lloyd and his perverted ninjas.

Hell, it could have been a world-class group-sulk, if that group hadn't chased the perv past them. Of course, the green-haired girls with horns froze, somehow falling instantly in love with...Tenchi, that had been his name. Then some cross-dressing girl had gotten in a fight with pig-tail boy, and by the time it was over she was stammering about finally realizing her womanhood.

The shrine-keeper turned school nurse who'd tried to exorcise him had actually been fairly nice to him, truth be told. She was quite possibly the only woman he'd ever met who actually believed that he didn't want women throwing themselves at him.

Still, was it some kind of universal law or something? The more you want, the less you get, and vice-versa?

His ruminations were rather abruptly ended as he heard a scream. A masculine scream, but a scream all the same. The scream of a lost soul.

It was odd, but Lloyd, who'd always preferred comedy before, had turned into something of a sucker for a good hard-luck story. And so, hoisting his lanky frame to its feet, he set off to see if he couldn't help the poor schmuck out.

The poor schmuck in question turned out to be a boy about seventeen or eighteen years old. Tall and skinny, with dark brown eyes and black hair, he was wearing a black boy's school uniform, the jacket unbuttoned with a blue t-shirt underneath.

He was also curled up into the fetal position, rocking back and forth.

Oh yeah. There was also a red and white duck pestering him.

Lloyd touched down, noting that his sudden appearance hadn't been sufficient to warrant a reaction from the boy. "...Um, I heard someone scream?"

The duck turned, and started quacking furiously. "IT'S A DEMON! IT'S A DEMON! IT'SADEMONIT'SADEMONIT'SADEMON..."

The boy looked up dully, self-loathing in his eyes. "Oh? Are you here to devour me alive? If so, could you make it quick? I'd always hoped for a relatively painless death. Though after that, I doubt anything could hurt."

Lloyd shook his head, and idly smacked the duck running around in circles with a tentacle. "Nah, just thought I'd see what the problem was. Though I suppose the more pertinent question now is; what's with the duck?"

"That's S&M Duck."

"...Okay."

The boy shrugged unconcernedly. "He says that it either stands for Super Macho or Sentai Mascot. I asked him if it had anything to do with whips and chains, and he insisted that just because he has random body piercings hidden under his feathers and a vinyl face mask fitted for a beak he was perfectly normal."

"...okay, I'm officially disturbed. And that's something, coming from me."

The boy managed a tired smile. "I'm Kyoya. Kyoya Izayoi. (2) You?"

"Lloyd. Formerly human, now turned into a tentacle demon."

THAT managed to break his stupor. "Really? I read something about you in the papers; you're letting people take potshots at you to see who can exorcise or kill you, right?"

Lloyd nodded. "Wanna know something sick? I have women literally throwing themselves at me, spread-legs first (he shuddered at the memory of ninja-warrior Kekko Kamen), and my morals won't let me do anything about it."

Kyoya favored him with an odd look. "Why not?" he finally asked. "I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but they're...well, pretty overt about wanting it. Sure, it's wrong to abduct girls and drag them off to eat them, but what's wrong with doing a willing one?"

Lloyd was silent for a moment. "Let me ask you something. You're out on a date, the girl's getting familiar, one thing leads to another, and you two find yourselves in a love motel. You're doing it, you're getting into it, and then she says stop, she's not ready. Now, option A: you grit your teeth and curse the gods, but agree. Option B: you figure she's already naked and spread, and do it anyway. Is option B still rape?" Kyoya nodded slowly. Lloyd sighed. "It's not that I don't want to; I've got enough male hormone pumping through me to drop a racehorse. But I don't believe in rape, and I doubt that any girl would want to go that far with me. And I have serious doubts as to whether or not I could say no once I gave in."

Kyoya shook his head. "A tentacle demon with ethics. I'll bet there's a reason why there aren't a whole lot of those."

Lloyd shrugged. "I'm one of a kind, I guess. So, what about you? What's your problem?"

It was Kyoya's turn to sigh. "My father's a martial artist. He teaches a sort of esoteric form of kenjutsu called Nempo. It's sort of a psychically-amplified version of normal kendo, but there are master techniques that let you tap into the chi of the external; 'use the force,' I guess you could say."

"His family's power is because they're the last descendents of the magical kingdom of Testostero!" piped up S&M Duck, having finally recovered from the earlier swat.

Kyoya favored the duck with a look rich in hate. "You know how there are all those magical-girl sentai groups running around? The Sailor Senshi run around in sailor-girl school uniforms, the Magic Knights get color-coded plate mail over mini-skirs, Wedding Peach runs around in bridesmaid dresses...you get the idea." Lloyd shuddered; he'd yet to run across Wedding Peach. Kyoya nodded. "Anyway, according to pate over there, I'm the guy equivalent of a magical girl."

Lloyd shrugged. "So, what's the hold up? I mean, there are lots of guy-group super heroes out there."

Kyoya sighed. "If it was just that, do you think I'd be complaining? It's...if you must know, it's the outfit."

Lloyd stared. "The outfit? What could possibly be that bad?"

Kyoya looked at him for a second, then looking around quickly, cupped a hand to his mouth and whispered into the tentacle demon's ear. Lloyd paled. "...uh...yeah, that's something worth screaming about, I guess."

Kyoya shrugged. "Nempo was created for dealing with sorcerers, necromancers, that sort of thing, so the whole, fighting evil thing isn't a problem as far as I'm concerned. But I REFUSE to do that."

"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Lloyd and Kyoya both turned, looking at the scream. "More dismayed then anything else," Kyoya observed. "Help, certainly, but not real danger."

Lloyd sighed. "It never ends, does it?"

--------

"What the hell is **that** supposed to be?"

Mitsuki Sanada (3) started, turning at the sound of voices. One was a high school boy, though from a different school as hers. The other was older, maybe in his mid-twenties at most, and wearing a trench coat. Neither looked particularly dangerous at first glance, though that could have been due to the fact that they were both too busy staring at the little mutant plush-toy who seemed bound and determined to make her life miserable.

So she shrugged, regarding the little bane herself. "I think it's some sort of a pokemon, or something."

"A pokemon?" the older one said. "It looks like some sort of mutated koala plush toy."

She shrugged, though the description was accurate enough. "I don't really know, but he only says one word, or variations on the syllables of that word, so what else could it be?"

"CHUU! Puuchu, chu puchu pu!" The Puchu waved its adorable little rugbeater indignantly.

Kyoya stared for a moment, then shook his head, his gaze returning to Mitsuki's. "We heard someone scream. Was that you?"

She nodded, her gaze becoming a bit fearful, a bit dismayed. "That...that little THING wants me to...to..."

They waited patiently.

Gathering her resolve, she spat it out. "It wants me to be a MAGICAL GIRL!"

Dead Silence.

Kyoya broke it quickly enough though. "What's wrong with that? There are tons of them in Tokyo; it's a tradition."

"Oh give me a break! Do you have any idea what magical girls really go through? They're poor, unsuspecting children taken advantage of by sinister manipulative little beasts that only LOOK cute, or they're locked into a thankless profession because of some sort of cursed heritage. They spend all their time fighting demons or weird magical golems, they're always random convenient stereotypes, they never get a chance to do homework, or shopping, or anything they need to do to have a real life, and they NEVER get a chance at a relationship unless its with their formerly-dead-reincarnated-as-a-masked-vigilante-amnesiac boyfriend! The only boys in their lives are villains, idiots, or perfect cute guys who get possessed or eaten by youma!"

Lloyd opened his mouth, then closed it. It was odd, but you'd be amazed at the sort of things you hear magical girls complain about. What Mitsuki had just said was actually quite accurate. (We'll conveniently pretend not to notice that despite a surfeit of introductions, they all know each others names).

Mitsuki however wasn't done. "And their OUTFITS! Come on, who goes to a fight in formal dinner wear or an evening gown? Or those ridiculous sailor outfits; I refuse to risk life and limb under any circumstances, but asking me to do it dressed up like some sort of otaku's street walker fantasy is just adding insult to injury."

Kyoya had been silent for a while, but that was the last straw. "You think YOU'VE got it bad? I just found out that this perverted duck wants me to be a magical BOY. There's no tradition, I'd have to make it up as I go along, and if you want to complain about outfits..." He grit his teeth, wrestling with the shame. Mitsuki started at the look of almost hateful resolve on his face. "Take a look at this." Drawing back a fist, he crouched and punched the ground, yelling at the same time, "SUPER MACHO MAKEOVER!"

A pillar of violet light engulfed him as his clothing dissolved, shunted into subspace for when he changed back into his normal outfit (white light suffused his skin, keeping the whole transformation sequence rated-G). There was a sort of effect with a pink-tinted wind whirling around him, and when it was over...

...It sort of looked like a boy's school uniform, though it was open to the waist, and while it had buttons, they were only for decoration; it was open, revealing an artificially-muscled chest. And most schools don't require white uniforms. The pants were skin-tight from the waist to just below the knees, where they became sort of bell-bottomy. Both top and pants were covered in candy-apple-red flame decals around the ankles, the pecs, and wrists. Oh yeah, he was also wearing a white half-cape and white-patent-leather platform shoes. And of course, his hair was slicked back with roughly half a pint of gel.

In short...

Mitsuki gaped at him. "...you look like some sort of gay Elvis impersonator."

Kyoya released a rattling breath as he immediately banished the outfit back into subspace and future nightmares. "Trust me, it can get a whole lot worse."

"I think it looks great. Besides, those platforms were Armani; they go wonderfully with your cheek bone structure."

Lloyd stared at the duck. "...huh. And here I thought it was just coincidence. The duck's gay."

"I AM NOT! JUST BECAUSE YOU SPY ON MEN IN HIGH SCHOOL LOCKER ROOMS DOESN'T MEAN YOUR GAY!"

"...I feel so unclean all of a sudden."

Mitsuki shrugged uncomfortably. At least her creepy mascot was unintelligible. "I guess it could be worse, but why couldn't they come up with something a little...well, more dignified? Like a shrine maiden outfit, or something."

Lloyd tapped his lip thoughtfully. "You know, that might work..."

Kyoya shook his head. "Trust me, dogi and hakama aren't as comfortable as you might think. Frankly, I've had just about all the tradition I could ever want. If I have to be a super-hero, why couldn't I be something a little more high-tech? Plus, with my background, it would be a great smoke screen."

Lloyd's eyes narrowed in thought. Sort of a Silent Mobius thing, that could work. Granted, it was just an idea, but still... "...You know, I could actually see the magic flows when you transformed. If you want, I could try to modify them. Maybe not to precisely what you want, but...well, I doubt I could make it worse."

Mitsuki frowned. "Wait, you could see magic? What the heck are you?"

"I'm the tentacle demon that's been in the paper."

"Ooooooh..."

(1) – Miko Mido, Midori Yaku, and Fubuki...whatshername, are all major characters from the series LA Blue Girl. Wherein a bunch of busty, scantily-clad, barely-legal female ninjas hunt down and screw delinquent/rebellious tentacle demons into submission.

And if you think THAT'S sick, just consider this; I'M NOT MAKING ANY OF IT UP.

(2) – The protagonist from Demon City Shinjuku.

(3) – One of the heroines from DUAL (Parallel Universe Adventure)

(incomplete)


End file.
